Archive for October, 2018

Once a popular option in the early days of the Mac, RAM disks, which were used to speed up the performance of a Mac, have fallen by the wayside.

Conceptually, RAM disks are a simple idea: a chunk of RAM set aside that looks, to the Mac system, like just another storage drive. The system, as well as any installed apps, can write files to or read files from the RAM disk, just as if it really were another storage drive mounted on your Mac.

But unlike any storage drive, a RAM disk can operate at the speed of RAM, which is usually many times faster than most drive storage systems.

RAM Disk History
RAM disks existed before the Macintosh ever hit the market, but we’re going to predominantly explore how RAM disks were used with the Mac.

The Mac Plus, released in 1986, had quite a few new features, including the use of SIM (Single Inline Memory) modules that users could easily upgrade. The Mac Plus shipped with 1 MB of RAM, but users could increase the memory size to 4 MB. That was an amazing amount of RAM in 1986, and begged the question: What can I do with all this memory space?

At the same time, many users were asking how they could speed up their Macs. And while many users were happy to just max out the RAM, and enjoy the performance gain of having more memory, which let them run more applications concurrently, some users discovered the joys of using a RAM disk to speed up the system and apps. Other users discovered that a RAM disk could be used to create an amazingly fast storage system. Remember, back then, most Mac Plus users were getting by with a single 800 KB floppy drive, while those who felt like splurging could add an additional external floppy drive. If you really had cash to burn, you could hook up a 20MB SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) hard drive, which would likely set you back well over $1,200.

The first prominent use of a RAM disk was to copy the Mac’s slow ROM (Read Only Memory), which contained many of the system’s core components, along with the operating system, which was stored on a floppy drive, and move them both to a RAM disk where they could operate at the speed of RAM; many, many times faster than either the floppy disk or the ROM.

The performance increase was amazing, and was achieved for just the cost of a RAM disk utility app.

The second common use of a RAM disk back in the Mac Plus days was to create a tiered storage system. Floppy drives weren’t fast enough for professionals or avid amateurs to work with new rich media editing systems, such as audio editors, image editors, or page layout apps. SCSI drives could meet the needs of image editing and page layout, but audio editing was at best iffy, with most SCSI drives being too slow to provide the needed bandwidth for audio or other real-time editing.

RAM disks, on the other hand, were very fast, and could easily meet the needs of real-time editing with their ability to write or read files as quickly as the RAM could be accessed, without the mechanical latency inherent in SCSI or floppy disks.

The only disadvantage to RAM disks was that the data stored in them was lost every time you turned your Mac off, or the power went out. You had to remember to copy the content of the RAM disk to your main storage system or your work would be lost.

After installing macOS Mojave, does your Mac feel a bit sluggish? Perhaps it’s taking longer to boot, taking longer to save or open files, and launching apps seems to take more time than it used to. Or perhaps your Mac is just experiencing an overall listlessness.

No matter what type of slowdown you’re experiencing, there’s a good chance one of these tips will help get your Mac back on its feet and running the way you remember.

If you’re experiencing slow startups after installing macOS Mojave, you may find one of the tips below will get you back up to speed.

Of course, your Mac may just be at its performance limit. Each new version of the macOS seems to need just a bit more processing, graphics, or disk performance than the last one. To cover that possibility, I’ll include a few upgrade tips that can help you get your Mac back into tip-top shape.

Startup Time Seems Slow
Have you noticed that after installing Mojave, the time it takes for your Mac to start up seems to have taken a nosedive? Surprisingly, this isn’t all that unusual and happens to a small percentage of users after a major macOS upgrade.

There are multiple possible causes, and we’ll look at how to fix them. The problems and fixes are in no particular order, and you don’t need to do every one, but it also won’t hurt to start with the first one and work your way through.

Login Items: Sometimes called the Startup List, this is a list of apps or services that will start up automatically when you log into your Mac. Apps can add items to the list when they’re installed, or you can manually add apps or services you use all the time to the list.

What can happen is the new OS no longer supports one or more items in the list. This results in a delay when you log in as each item tries to launch and then times out. Or the app could still work but takes a long time to launch. The fix is to clean out old unsupported apps and services from the Login Items list.

Reset SMC, NVRAM: The SMC (System Management Controller) takes care of a number of basic functions, including controlling fan speed, power, and a good deal more. During startup, an SMC that is misbehaving or has corrupt information can delay the startup process.

Likewise, the NVRAM (non-volatile random-access memory), which stores configuration information, such as mouse or trackpad settings, keyboard settings, which disk is the startup disk, and a bit more, can slow down the startup process if the stored data is incorrect.

Safe Mode: Safe Mode is primarily a diagnostic startup mode that prevents most third-party items from loading. But it also verifies and repairs, if needed, any issues with the startup drive. In addition, Safe Mode will delete all font caches, kernel caches, and system caches, which are likely candidates for startup slowdowns.

The process of securely wiping a drive, that is, removing every bit of the data it contains and scrambling its content enough to protect the information stored on the drive from prying eyes, is fairly well understood for old-fashioned spinning hard drives. SSDs, on the other hand, can be affected poorly by the same techniques used on hard drives: overwriting data locations multiple times with random data or specific data patterns.

To make matters worse, at least from a security standpoint, even after overwriting data on an SSD, it’s possible that some of the original information is still present on the drive.

Which brings us to the question: Can you securely erase an SSD without damaging the drive, and make sure that all of the information is no longer recoverable?

We originally looked at the changes High Sierra brought to performing a secure wipe. In this Rocket Yard article, we’re going to further explore how to securely wipe an SSD.

SSD Architecture
As we said above, the process of securely wiping a hard drive is fairly well understood. The linear nature of data storage on a spinning drive, along with the ability to access and read, write, and erase data at all active storage locations make the sanitation process pretty easy, though sometimes time-consuming. Essentially, you need to erase the volume and partition maps, and then overwrite each data location using a random or specific data pattern.

The number of times data is written, and the data pattern used for the secure wipe, allows the sanitation process to meet specific security requirements, including those set forth by the DOD or other government agencies.

SSDs, on the other hand, don’t use a linear storage convention, nor are the storage locations directly addressable. Instead, SSDs use a number of mapping layers that hide the physical layout of the flash-based memory, as well as help in managing how flash memory data integrity and lifetime are managed. Collectively, these layers are referred to as the flash translation layer (FTL).

SSDs are also overprovisioned; they contain a bit more flash memory than what they’re rated for. This extra memory is used internally by the FTL as empty data blocks, used when data needs to be rewritten, and as out-of-band sections for use in the logical to physical mapping.

The mapping layers, and how the flash controller manages memory allocation, pretty much ensure that either erasing or performing a conventional hard drive type of secure erase won’t ensure all data is overwritten, or even erased at all.

One example of how data gets left behind intact is due to how data is managed in an SSD. When you edit a document and save the changes, the saved changes don’t overwrite the original data (an in-place update). Instead, SSDs write the new content to an empty data block and then update the logical to physical map to point to the new location. This leaves the space the original data occupied on the SSD marked as free, but the actual data is left intact. In time, the data marked as free will be reclaimed by the SSD’s garbage collection system, but until then, the data could be recovered.

A conventional secure erase, as used with hard drives, is unable to access all of the SSD’s memory location, due to the FTL and how an SSD actually writes data, which could lead to intact data being left behind.

That may be due to a more rigorous beta cycle, or maybe we just haven’t had enough time to uncover all the possible problems. Either way, here’s our newest guide to what broke and how to fix it in macOS Mojave.

SMS Messages Not Delivered
If you use the Messages app on the Mac to send SMS messages, you may notice a strange timeout error occurring when you send an SMS message to a non-Apple device.

Once you send such a message, you may see a “Not Delivered” error message. While the error message is a bit vexing, it gets stranger. Turns out your message was sent, and likely received, without any problems.

If that was the extent of the issue, you could probably live with it and wait for a fix in one of the subsequent Mojave updates. But as you may have guessed, there’s one more problem associated with the Not Delivered error. Once you see the Not Delivered error message, the recipient will not be able to send you any responses.

At the time of this writing, there’s no fix available for the issue that always works. But I can list a few things that some people have reported as a cure, although just as many said the cure didn’t help them. Since there’s no official fix, this, then, is a best shot approach:

Sign out and sign back into Messages: Works for some people, but in most cases, the problem eventually returns.

Sign out of iCloud and sign back in: The idea here is to force your Mac’s data to re-sync with all of your other devices via iCloud. If you give this fix a try, be sure to save the iCloud data locally on your Mac, just to ensure you don’t lose any information. You’ll be presented with the option to save the iCloud data locally when you sign out.

Stop sending SMS messages to non-Apple devices: This works, but it may be difficult to get all your Android-using friends to switch to Apple.

The SMS error appears to be very erratic, with many people not experiencing the problem at all, yet there’s more than a handful of users who have reported the issue. If you’ve seen this problem, let us know by using the comments section, below.

Weird Fonts
No, not a new set of fonts for the Mac, but fonts you’ve been using for ages now looking weird in Mojave. The usual sign for weird fonts is a bit of blurring or softness along the edges, even the straight horizontal or vertical lines of a letter.

The blurring is seen most often on non-Retina Macs. The cause is Mojave disabling sub-pixel antialiasing, an older font rendering technique that helped fonts appear smoother and less jagged on most displays.

You may not be afflicted with the problem if you upgraded to Mojave from an earlier OS that had font smoothing enabled. Even then, some users have mentioned the weird fonts even though they upgraded. No matter what the actual sequence of events is needed to disable sub-pixel font rendering, you can turn the feature back on with this simple two-step process:

Launch System Preferences by clicking or tapping the System Preferences icon in the Dock, or selecting System Preferences from the Apple menu.

Select the General preference pane from the System Preferences window.

At the bottom of the General preference pane, make sure there’s a checkmark in the “Use LCD font smoothing when available” box. (It may say “Use font smoothing when available,” depending on the type of display you’re using.)

macOS Mojave has a number of security and privacy enhancements that can help make using your Mac a simpler, safer, and more secure experience. Apple made changes to Safari, as well as expanded Gatekeeper and SIP services provided by the macOS.

Automatic Strong Passwords with Safari
Safari can automatically create strong 20-character passwords for you when you’re setting up a new service or account. Safari will populate the password and password confirmation field for you, though you can accept or reject the supplied password. The account password will be stored in Safari, and synced with your other Apple devices using iCloud. As long as you remain within the Apple environment (macOS, iOS, watchOS, tvOS), you can access all of your account passwords using just your Apple ID password.

3) Place or remove the checkmark from the item labeled AutoFill user names and passwords.

Safari Password Reuse
Apple can’t put an end to password reuse, the practice of using the same password, or weak variants of a common password, over and over across multiple sites and services. Reusing passwords can be a disaster waiting to happen. Should someone gain access to one of your accounts, they’re going to try that same password with any other account or service they think you’re using.

As you can imagine, the results wouldn’t be very pretty if you’re reusing your passwords.

Safari in macOS Mojave won’t prevent you from reusing passwords on multiple websites, but it can warn you when you do:

Launch Safari, and then select Preferences from the Safari menu item.

In the Safari preferences window, select the Passwords item in the toolbar.

Enter the password for the current user in order to unlock the Safari passwords.

The passwords that Safari has remembered for you will be displayed. If any passwords are being reused, Safari will mark them with a yellow warning placard.

Clicking or tapping one of the warning symbols will display details about the warning, including where the password is being reused, and a link to the current site, so you can quickly go there and change the password.